The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/theworldin/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14742624&d=2010 <comment><USER3> This article is bullshit. It's premised on a single piece of evidence: the decline of jobs for MBAs. Holding the decline of jobs in a recession as a sign a qualification is worthless is ridiculous. The demand for engineers has gone down as well, does that mean engineering qualifications are worthless ?

Following the same logic if the demand for MBA graduates went up then it would make sense to argue that MBAs are valuable. So if we look at the early 2000s where this was true was Lucy Kellaway writing articles calling out the merits of MBAs ? - well no, it turns out Lucy Kellaway has been writing articles slagging off MBAs since the 90s.

Ms Kellaway is just using the recession to ride her hobby-horse.

We shouldn't be any less critical when reading articles that support our personal opinions than those that oppose them.

<comment><USER4> This article is from their speculative 'The world in 2010' publication, which attempts to forecast the coming year. That means its a bit more speculative than standard economist articles.

Wall-street bailouts definitely made business less sexy on main street

<comment><USER5> frankly it's not business that's sexy, making tons of money is. i used to work on wallstreet, and i can assure you the people there are smart enough, well connected enough, and greedy enough to find new ways to make fortunes again, in fact they already are. the bonus' at goldman sachs and scores of hedge funds this year will seem quite sexy again for those undergrads and mba students.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "No financial man will ever understand business because financial people think a company makes money. A company makes shoes, and no financial man understands that. They think money is real. Shoes are real. Money is an end result."

Peter Drucker

<comment><USER7> This is silly. Both aspects are important. Someone who thinks money isn't real may make huge basic business blunders like not paying the right taxes, not managing their debt/income correctly, or just making horribly inefficient business choices (I've seen this a lot). The result may be a company that goes out of business even though it's perfectly viable if run correctly. Or a company that dies because it inadvertently violates tax law, or labor law, or environmental law, etc, etc. Or merely a company that doesn't compete as effectively against its cohorts and falls so far behind it becomes irrelevant.

<comment><USER8> No, what's silly is that people still quote Peter Drucker with a straight face.

Ever been frustrated by the many layers of middle management in corporate America today, or laughed at a dilbert strip? Blame Peter Drucker.

Just look at the results of all this "management as a science" bullshit - <USER2> one fifth of employees feel engaged with their jobs today, as was recently pointed out by the WSJ ([http://blogs.wsj.com/management/2009/12/16/management's-dirt...](http://blogs.wsj.com/management/2009/12/16/management's-dirty- little-secret)).

<comment><USER9> I fail to see the connection you draw between Drucker's teaching (eg What gets measured gets managed) and the poor management you see in corporations today. Have you ever read any of his articles/books? Can you point to anything particularly offensive?

Anyway Drucker wasn't a "management as a science" guy. He was an economist, or a microeconomist if you're nitpicking.

<comment><USER8> He certainly fits the mold of a microeconomist, but he revolutionized the study of management in the US. I don't think it's at all disingenuous to say that he drove management science to what it is today.

And to sum up his teachings as "What gets measured gets managed" is fairly trite when he wrote 30+ books on the subject of organizations and management.

So yes, I think "management as a science" guy is totally appropriate. Or as he is described so often on book covers - "Managment Guru"

My point is, we have MBA's coming out of programs which rely a great deal on the teaching of Peter Drucker, and companies are starting to wake up to the realization that Drucker's "Knowledge worker"/MBA doesn't possess the generalizable skills that he argued for.

Drucker argued for large corporations and layering, giving rise to the current bought of middle management that make up the majority of cruft in a today's organization.

And yes, I was required to read Drucker my my management classes.

<comment><USER9> eg means 'for example.' I wasn't summing 30+ books worth of economic thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd like to know what counts as bullshit. Six Sigma and other such fads certainly seem like they ought to be included. But, what's not bullshit? A good MBA program is an amalgam of fundamental concepts in economics, sociology, mathematics (at least stats), and such. Six Sigma might be analyzed, but it's not presented as a fundamental truth or even a profound idea.

Let's take a specific example: the concept of "agency costs". An economist defines these to be the inefficiencies resulting from one's agents (those doing work for him, and those doing work for those agents, etc.) having different incentives than himself. MBA program include agency costs as one of many economic concepts discussed.

A friend with a Harvard MBA was selling his house while living in another city. He noted that the traditional real estate agent's "6/4" commission structure (6% of the first 100K and 4% thereafter) causes a rational agent to sell as many homes as possible without regard to the actual selling prices. Why bother seeking out a buyer willing to pay $20K more when you only get $800 of that? It would be easier to seek out an additional seller instead. An agent incentivized with this structure likely would not act in his best interests.

So, my friend persuaded an agent to accept a very different plan: 2% up to the price he felt he could get by putting out a FSBO sign in the front yard and 10% thereafter. With this, the agent could earn significantly more by working to find a high-paying buyer. The house ended up selling for a little more than the "FSBO sign" price, so he at least saved on commission.

Those here without MBAs might also think in this way -- much as those without CS degrees might also understand algorithmic complexity. It's not that the content of a top MBA program can't be learned through self study in the same way that good developers are sometimes self taught. But, to suggest that the fundamental content of an MBA program is "bullshit" ignores what is valuable.

Perhaps we are most aware of frat-boy MBAs' self-important yapping, but the fundamental concepts of these programs are generally sound. I have an MBA from a less-than-Harvard program and have found what I learned there to be of benefit. And, I consider myself pretty much bullshit free.

</comment><comment><USER7> I can certainly understand the desire to vilify MBAs, there's certainly plenty to complain about. However, it's also worth remembering that folks with sound business sense and good intentions are really very valuable. There are countless examples of very talented people (engineers, artists, musicians) who came to ruin because they lacked even the slightest business sense and made some bad choices they couldn't recover from. Weighed along with that there are many examples of healthy working relationships where makers and business folks work with each other, complementing each other's skills, making a more successful business venture than either could alone. Would Woz have helped revolutionize the computer industry to the same degree without the help of Jobs? How many other examples of that sort exist?

As well, the quality of the average programmer is nothing to crow about (just check Daily WTF if you need examples). Personally I can't say for sure whether I would rather work with an average programmer or an average MBA, neither situation fills me with enthusiasm. The absence of business savvy professionals from the startup world is not something to look forward to, even if it comes with the beneficial result of fewer predatory MBAs. A preferable future would be one where a greater percentage of makers gain enough business sense to be able to get along on their own, avoid the worst business mistakes, and also to develop the radar to be able to avoid the sharks and find the angels.

<comment><USER11> Not that I disagree with your premise about makers and business folks, but Steve Jobs didn't have an MBA or a college degree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _[I]f fewer bright, ambitious people go into business, economies may suffer. Instead the talent will go increasingly into the public sector, the law, medicine—which are already bursting with bright people as it is._

This must be some new definition of "suffer" that I was not previously aware of.

<comment><USER13> I think it would be conservative to estimate that millions of jobs and billions of dollars of production are generated regularly from firms founded by "bussinessy" business types. Yesterday I was listening to an interview of an entrepreneur that I admire, and I didn't realize until then that he had an MBA. There are probably tens of thousands of people employed by him.

But don't let me get in the way of your prejudices, it's always fun to kick an unpopular person in public for the general amusement.

<comment><USER12> The prejudice is not in me, but in the author of the original essay.

There are entrepreneurs who have led companies to provide great value for their customers, employees, and stockholders, and entrepreneurs who have led companies straight into the ground. There are doctors who work heroically and insightfully to save lives and there are doctors who are more interested in satisfying their God complex than actually caring for patients. There are lawyers who help right the injustices of the world and lawyers who just look for excuses to run up their bills.

I don't see why we should assume, a priori, that fewer bright and ambitious people in business and more in law or medicine will be a net social loss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> To me studying business because you want to be good at business is like studying the concept of winning if you want to be good at a sport.

That could probably be phrased a little better, but I am just amazed at the number of smart young people I know who aspire to study an MBA rather than something tangible/critical that will give them a useful or scarce ability.

<comment><USER15> Sports teams spend hours every day watching film for a reason. You have to study the problem you're facing in order to figure out the best way to handle it. Business is simply solving one problem after another until you've got a profitable company.

You learn a ton by starting and running a business, but a formal education can give you a more encompassing framework on how to think and approach specific situations.

I'm going to an undergraduate business school right now, and I'm also a web developer and entrepreneur. Sure, some stuff is common sense, but I've also learned a lot that was under the surface that I've already found to be invaluable in my endeavors.

<comment><USER16> I think the films being referred to were more along the lines of "how to spend your millions", "what it's like to show off your superbowl ring", or commercials where sports stars are asked "What are you going to do now?" and they respond "Go to Disney Land", as if these somehow indicated HOW to win. The films you're referring to are the proper ones to watch to, as you say, study the problem area and come up with winning strategies. It's not watching movies like Big to find out how to become an executive at a toy company or Gung Ho to determine how to run an auto manufacturing plant.

<comment><USER13> The business program that you attended must really suck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In defense of MBAs, they can actually be useful IF you already have domain knowledge. The problem is when MBA graduates with no domain expertise are unleashed to manage and lead a business. It's dangerous even in small markets, for example the Stanford MBA trying to sell condom keychains (<http://www.storylog.com/how-my-start-up-failed/>)

I work in a multi-disciplinary engineering firm. In the past, the project managers were typically promoted from the senior engineering ranks (like a lead mechanical engineer). About 5 years ago, the company decided to create a separate discpline for project management. So graduate engineers would go straight into assisting project managers, and then becoming one themselves without ever working on a project as a discipline engineer.

Now we have to deal with project managers who've never actually worked on a project and don't understand how projects really get done. They only know how to manipulate cost and schedule spreadsheets and set unrealistic milestones.

The best project managers I've worked with have had extensive experience working on projects in their discipline, then supplemented these skills with an MBA or similar such management training.

</comment><comment><USER18> If The Economist can use the word _bullshit_ , in the technical sense -- self- conscious jargoneering intended to inflate the speaker's perceived importance -- then the rest of us can too, right?

<comment><USER19> You don't need permission to say bullshit. Always call it when you see it. It doesn't need shelter.

<comment><USER20> 37signals would be significantly raised in my estimation if you tempered your invectives with less emotional arguments.

Of course, tempered rational arguments rarely drive significant traffic, and lackluster traffic doesn't drive sales.

<comment><USER21> This is not the 36signals blog nor TMZ.com; Jason can say what he wants.

<comment><USER20> Where did I claim otherwise? I only noted that his suggested approach -- which is clearly reflected by 37signals -- has led to me maintain a lower estimation of their decorum and the value of their positions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As entrepreneurs our focus is different anyway. Some people will attend b-school to get a better job. We'll attend to learn skills, which is part of what the article says:

"In future, those who stump up will do so because they want to learn the skills, not because they think they are buying entry into a cool and exclusive club"

B-school is what you make of it. You get a couple years to soak up a ton of knowledge. Sure there's always BS but there are some incredibly powerful models that you just won't learn outside of it unless you're _very_ dedicated. HR? As primarily a developer, I'm not going to read an HR textbook unless someone tests me on it. Turns out it's a very interesting subject and links strongly to your strategy. Same with marketing, finance, etc etc.

You can also attend, get through the exams and have the primary output being a piece of paper - same as any other degree.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've been waiting for this.

Clayton Christensen predicted the coming decline of the MBA several years ago in _The Innovator's Solution_ (very good book BTW). The financial bubble has extended the popularity of MBAs, but it is a net loss to take several years out of your career to gain information that you could gain on the side while continuing working with an executive MBA. Eventually the market is going to come to accept that.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A friend told me that a Harvard MBA graduation dinner Warren Buffet was invited to speak. Apparently one of his lines was something like: "If you were going to do anything incredible you'd have dropped out by now". I bet that went down well.

</comment><comment><USER24> Please. There's enough bullshit in the world to outlast oil, water and sunlight. A few less MBAs, at best, means that some of that bullshit will have to find real jobs and will make slightly less money. More environmental engineers, now that would be something to celebrate.

</comment><comment><USER25> One the hats I wear is that of a recruiter (its business we operate here) focused on finance and biotech. I couldnt agree more: MBAs aren't that hireable right now, even in banking. In fact a good junior, with 2 years of experience, are much more placeable. As for higher degrees, if you want into banking or business, comp sci, physics, applied math, statistics are better MS degrees.

I dont have an MBA, and havent pursued one thus far, but for the cost and knowing the job market, I think the article is mostly right. Good managers can teach business stuff as long as the talent is dynamic enough. Those analytical skills, though, are highly valuable in this market to smart hiring managers.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's good to see The Economist addressing some of the fundamental flaws in how "business" is practiced today, particularly at the end of the article.

The past two decades transformed business from the valuable business-building concepts of management, distribution, and efficiency to obscure concepts like deal-making and arbitrage.

They have their place in the financial/economic systems, but they are not the foundation of business. With shows like "The Apprentice", these are the parts that are glorified, and it leaks into our business education.

Business isn't about finger-guns and handshakes. It's about creating value and then getting it to those who need it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I hope we don't lose Dragons' Den. The Canadian version is great entertainment.

<comment><USER27> I can't believe some of those deals. $25,000 and 50% plus a renaming of the company to include the investors name.

<comment><USER4> Yes, the deals are sometimes crazy exploitative. But at the same time, they sometimes dish out lines of credit to people just because they like them.

The real problem with the show is the format. The amount of money they ask for, they need to get. So the equity amount always climbs to 51%.

I think that even the deals that are agreed upon mainly fall apart later on. Great show though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if the decline in MBA's and the associated value placed on them directly correlates to the fact that law school applications are surging. I seems to me that Law may be a close second for someone considering an MBA, I know Law is a close second for those who opt not to go to Med school.

</comment><comment><USER29> For most students, MBAs are for networking, from what I was told.

People exchange their business cards on the very first day and build up a network trying to climb the corp ladder together...

It is a sad situation but nevertheless, who seek true value in our modern world? Reflections will bring us wisdom.

</comment><comment><USER30> First, Please avoid editorializing story titles.

Second, this article has the facts wrong. MBAs from top schools aren't having trouble finding jobs, nor have those jobs started paying way less.

<comment><USER31> Also, I don't think it's the MBAs that are the problems. Rather, the job market was sending the wrong signals by paying people with MBAs far more than they're worth. Due to the inflationary monetary supply enabled by the federal reserve, the finance industry was able to grow and become extremely profitable, attracting lots of talent with large salaries. These people would have naturally gravitated to many different career choices if the pay scales weren't so lopsided.

<comment><USER18> _Inflationary monetary supply enabled by the federal reserve... lots of talent with large salaries._

This sounds like a villain-hunt: a well-known cognitive bias that seeks to explain circumstances in terms of human agents with simple, understandable motivations to the exclusion of environmental, structural, or probabilistic explanations that lack such features.

In this case, while I'm sure the Fed bears some responsibility, a lot of the growth of the financial sector over the last 30 years is probably due to the fact that several billion Asians have entered the world economy in that time. Their work creates wealth, which is useful as capital, for which there are markets, which grow from the influx and thus offer larger rewards to clever people who work in finance, should they find a better/faster/more efficient way of getting things done.

<comment><USER31> The Fed began expanding the M3 monetary supply at a historically unprecedented rate in the 80s, and has become more and more aggressive with this policy over time. The entire point of this policy is to stimulate business by encouraging spending, make credit more attractive because the value of debt loses value over time due to inflation, and discourage saving. As consumers spend more, businesses make more, sending signals to the job market that getting into business and getting an MBA is a really good idea because you make more money. So that's exactly what people have done. Now that the American consumer is tapped out, broke, and unable to take on any more credit, obviously businesses are going to do poorly because their goods aren't being purchased, and they certainly can't afford to hire any more expensive MBAs. Do you agree?

A growing and productive world workforce does lead to additional production/wealth creation, and I do think this is conducive to business, but I don't think it's the significant factor explaining the current glut in the job market for people with MBAs in the United States.

The population in China is still expanding, workforce is growing, and GDP is still booming, so if this were the driving force fueling the demand for MBAs from America then that demand should still be there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> 1\. If only.

2\. The love affair with business is cyclical. The 1980s probably tied in with MBAs just because more people were going to get graduate and professional degrees.

</comment><comment><USER33> _What do the brightest and poshest students at Oxford and Harvard want to study? Business._

as an Oxford alumni, i'd love to know what she's basing that statement on.

<comment><USER34> the correct singular is alumnus

few things bother me more than blatantly incorrect usage of Latin next to supposedly prestigious institutions

<comment><USER35> Fewer things bother me more than pseudo-intellectual jackasses bothered by grammar.

<comment><USER36> Fewer things bother me more than flippant replies to pseudo-intelectual jackasses. I'm just not bothered by very much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Isn't this well known ?

Hasn't Dilbert been saying this for years more succinctly and wittily ?

</comment><comment><USER38> Such tone is pretty counter-intuitive, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER39> _What do the brightest and poshest students at Oxford and Harvard want to study? Business._

Brightest? Math, computer science, the natural sciences, and the humanities.

Poshest? Philosophy, classics.

Neither has much interest in an _undergraduate_ business degree, and both classes of people come from an environment where people with undergraduate business degrees are considered not to have gone to college.

Regarding business <strike>credentialing</strike> education: you do that after college, especially if you need or want a late 20s boost. That's what the MBA's for.

</comment><comment><USER40> The Article Just Tells people what they want to hear. Management Positions will still be filled with the MBA Crowd.</comment>


Apple Pro Display XDR review: category of one - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21161487/apple-mac-pro-display-xdr-review-6k-lcd-screen-price-features <comment><USER2> I hate the foot, but it looks like not only did they make it easier to take off, but it's optional.

The lack of ports is saving me from buyer's remorse for the new display I bought a couple months ago.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just a note: LG has also a new 5K 27" display aimed for Apple users [1]. Worth taking a look.

[1] [https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-27MD5KA-B-5k-uhd-led- monit...](https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-27MD5KA-B-5k-uhd-led-monitor)

<comment><USER2> I went with Benq's equivalent of that display. More connector diversity (shortage of USB-C though), but the speakers are so bad they shouldn't have bothered.

When I replace it I'll have to sort out the speaker situation (currently using the ones on my secondary)

<comment><USER4> Speakers in monitors are an area where Apple really could have disrupted the status quo. It just makes no sense how bad built in speakers are, my iPhone SE has better sound than my 4K monitor or my 2.5K monitor. I didn't come across anything with positive speaker reviews while shopping for my monitors either.

<comment><USER5> And it's not like some advanced tech is needed to make speakers that sound good in a small space like a monitor bezel. I have a 7 year old portable Bluetooth speaker that is probably 1" x 2" x 5" and it sounds great.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


U.S. Military Actually Has a Contingency Plan to Stop a Zombie Uprising - <AUTHOR> http://www.mediaite.com/online/u-s-military-actually-has-a-contingency-plan-to-stop-a-zombie-uprising/

<comment><USER2> The title is somewhat misleading. From the article:

 _Rather, it 's a training exercise that used a fictional, rather than hypothetical, scenario as its premise, to prevent public panic in case the plan ever got out, which it clearly can._</comment>


Ask HN: What books should I read as a software manager? - <AUTHOR> I am currently working as the head of an IT team consisting of developers, testers, product managers in a startup. I was one of the 2 developers in the same company a year ago and now our team has more than 10 people. So I have little experience as a manager and I want to improve myself.<p>Which books do you suggest? <comment><USER2> This list is still excellent: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> _The Mythical Man-Month_ by Frederick Brooks

<comment><USER4> I would also recommend the follow-up book entitled "The Design of Design" also by Frederick Brooks

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd recommend the Phoenix Project - very easy read. [http://www.amazon.com/The-Phoenix-Project-Helping- Business/d...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Phoenix-Project-Helping- Business/dp/0988262592)

<comment><USER6> Seconded, really great book, super easy read.

<comment><USER7> Thirded. The narrative form threw me off at first, but I think it really lays out a lot of the concepts in a digestible way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Peopleware by DeMarco and Lister

</comment><comment><USER9> The One Minute Manager ... this is the first book I read when I became a manager and something I read again from time to time. It's simple and quick and gives you a basic framework to rely on.

</comment><comment><USER7> These recommendations are great, but I'll add one I haven't seen here yet: "Notes to a Software Team Leader" by Roy Osherove. I think it's a great read on how to empower your teams to succeed on their own. And it's written from the perspective that is likely to be shared (at least in part) by your dev leads, so it'll likely have helpful insight in that way as well.

</comment><comment><USER10> How to Win Friends and Influence People.

You will only advance as a manager by working through people, and this gives you a good framework for developing rapport.

</comment><comment><USER11> Also check out manager-tools.com. The basics podcasts are invaluable to keeping sanity as a manager.

</comment><comment><USER12> Eric Raymond, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar." On face, it's largely about FOSS development; but, more so, it's about how one ought to go about thinking of solutions to technical problems. A phenomenal read.

</comment><comment><USER13> Getting Things Done - David Allen.

I read it when I had a team your size.

</comment><comment><USER14> Managing Humans by Michael Lopp

[http://managinghumans.com/](http://managinghumans.com/)

</comment><comment><USER15> The Deadline [http://amzn.to/1SW6Tgh](http://amzn.to/1SW6Tgh)

<comment><USER15> Also Peopleware [http://amzn.to/1TYIMio](http://amzn.to/1TYIMio) And Slack [http://amzn.to/1CDfnj4](http://amzn.to/1CDfnj4)

Demarco is great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> High Output Management by Andy Grove

</comment><comment><USER17> Dreaming in Code is work a read.

</comment><comment><USER18> Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo.

</comment><comment><USER19> John Lakos, Large Scale C++ Software Design. Read it even if you dont do C++ as the most valuable parts apply to any language.

Anything by Watts Humphrey.

Elliot Aronson, The Social Animal

Eric Berne MD, Games People Play</comment>


Show HN: Find open source projects to contribute to easily - <AUTHOR> https://firstcontrib.herokuapp.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> This works on users starred repos, so wouldn't fetch anything if you don't have starred repos. Repo: [https://github.com/krishnanunnir/opensource-first- contrib-se...](https://github.com/krishnanunnir/opensource-first-contrib- search)</comment>


StartupsLean.com - news about lean startups culture and tools - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupslean.com/?utm_source=ycombinator&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=ycombinator

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate your feedback!

It's a site for sharing news about lean startups, supported by LamerNews, another jewel of code by the great Antirez.

I learned a lot of Sinatra and Redis just reading the code.</comment>


The new YC: As it tries to scale from 200 to 2,000 companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-paul-buchheit-ali-roghawni-on-revamped-y-combinator-2016-2 <comment><USER2> Why does YC needs to grow into 2000 companies/ year program? I feel they should tackle it like a University. Stanford does not try to grow 10x from 20k students to 200k students.

Part of the appeal is exclusivity (besides of course its hard to scale).

I'd rather see YC at 200-300 companies a year - and ensuring these companies continue to grow/ succeed after the batch is over rather than churning out 1000 more.

<comment><USER3> >Part of the appeal is exclusivity

There are too many complex problems in the world that need to be solved for the desire of exclusivity to exist.

I think 2000 companies/year is too few. There are so many good problems that need to be solved and they just need a little bit of midas's touch. This sounds pretty reasonable to me.

<comment><USER4> There are indeed. But is YC really going after those?

As far as I understand they are def interested in research etc. But I have still to see any real complex or hard problems they are trying to solve. Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER5> Do you think it's lack of YC seeking them out or lack of startup founders tackling these problems?

<comment><USER4> I think it's a lack of synergy between the angel model and the price of solving really big or complex problems.

YC in my understanding is catered at companies who are solving natural next steps at the right time, not necessarily problems with a 5-10 year horizon.

I am always reminded how Interval Research went from 10 years research to market horizon to suddenly 3-4 years.

For all the Silicon Valley is good it it seems to be best at creating relatively obvious solutions for fairly trivial problems.

If more big and complex problems were solved Elon Musk would be the rule not the exception.

This is what's kind of sad about SV these days.

It might drive the digital economy but one might ask in what direction.

<comment><USER6> The answer is "as many directions as possible"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The first batch of YC founders photo is a bit heartbreaking. Aaron next to Sam next to pg and Jessica on the left. The latter batches benefited from the learnings, but this batch must have been so much more personal.

<comment><USER7> Agreed, and the lack of diversity is also a bit heartbreaking. No women, and no under-represented minorities (as far as I can tell). I'm sure YC has tried to fix that in present classes, but still funny that the stereotype of silicon valley is grounded in real life.

<comment><USER8> You could only make that claim if you knew who applied to YC that first batch and was rejected. Do you actually know or is this simply a way of harping on a subject that is dear to you and is there someone / some group that you feel got left out on purpose?

<comment><USER7> No, nothing like that - I am removed from any personal feelings.

Just observing facts from the picture. I'm getting down-voted, but I don't mean any ill will towards anyone. Perhaps no women or minorities applied to be in the first batch, but then again, that is also an indicator of a social issue - that more women and blacks and hispanics are not engaged in tech.

I just wish that tech entrepreneurship drew a more diverse crowd, as that would bring more diverse and necessary solutions for world problems. Not everything can be fixed from the lens of middle class white and asian men.

<comment><USER9> As important the issue of minorities/gender in tech is, probably people just do not want it to be brought up in every single topic.

<comment><USER7> That's fair, poor context and insensitive to the original reply on my part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is slightly depressing, but on some level it makes sense to increase quantity when quality is going down. There are just too many me-too startups and a lot of time, money and effort is wasted around startups that revolve around marketing and advertising. Probably on fintech too. Playing the number games around those can certainly work.

A local start-up incubator is just about finished constructing a second building with a lot of facilities and laboritories for bio-tech start-ups. I feel that is an interesting approach and could be interesting for YCR also.

</comment><comment><USER5> It seems like market saturation of YC companies will dilute their brand. Better for everyone else I guess.

<comment><USER11> Maybe, but they control who they accept, so if quality drops it is entirely due to the selection process, not due to the number of accepted companies.

<comment><USER8> It could drop too if the applications drop in quality and YC continues to accept companies into their program. The best way to analyze this is to figure out if the ratio of big hits to applicants is dropping relative to the ratio of big hits in a given 6 month period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Are there that many good ideas?

<comment><USER13> How many technology companies are there in the world?

<comment><USER14> What percentage of those would be helped by VC investment?

The vast majority of tech companies are better off staying small and being normal companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder how demo day/funding will work. It'd be a bit mind numbing for VCs to watch 2000 presentations.

</comment><comment><USER16> Technological and manpower dark pool operator.)

</comment><comment><USER17> Is the success scaling? My gut says no.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is great!</comment>


Iran sentences Princeton graduate student to 10 years for espionage - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iran-sentences-princeton-graduate-student-to-10-years-for-espionage-report-says/2017/07/16/664320c4-6a46-11e7-abbc-a53480672286_story.html <comment><USER2> The Iran traveling expert in me says: we can't tell the truth from this article. Let's say: the threat of US spies is real for Iran as too much of its history has somehow been staged or influenced by the British or the Americans. Those are not conspiracy theories, but history facts. That is why Americans attract the interest of the government there (truth be said, 99,9% of Americans traveling to Iran never have problems). It would suprise me if the US would not try to send spies there, on the other hand I also doubt that every accused spy there is indeed one.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting, and funny, talk on a documentary about Iran: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtELk8S3dhU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtELk8S3dhU)

</comment><comment> castle-bravo If he was a spy, would a 10-year sentence be unjust?

<comment><USER4> Yes

<comment><USER5> Why?

<comment><USER4> Just throwing in my vote for the answer to a subjective question. Why should i have to justify me choice? But if I must :) Someone takes action against a group of bad people; bad people catch him and punish him; is that justice? I say no. Doesn't matter that the bad people call themselves a government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a US citizen, do you want a US spy to get 10 years in Iranian prison? Considering principle of uniformity, we should reduce punishment for spying significantly. Why does it have to be prison, when it could be deportation + property confiscation?

Spying country should be punished, not that particular individual.</comment>


Measuring Point Inflation on HackerNews - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@zitterbewegung/measuring-point-inflation-c88c325bf090#.vho8dit74 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I wrote this blog post if you have any questions / issues you can respond to me here.</comment>


Ask HN: Specific feedback on GoDaddy / Rackspace - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
A friend of mine and I are embarking on a start up. Our web-app is essentially done and we're just waiting to hear back on some funding. I'm a programmer, but I don't feel THAT comfortable with site administration, so I just wanted to get some feedback from those of you who have been in a similar position before (googling for reviews - it's hard to find unbiased-ness!)
GoDaddy: I like the fact that they have everything we need, or plan to need in the future all bundled in one. Domain, SSL, languages/servers, etc... Very easy to use, and pretty well priced. My only concern is that update and confirmation emails will be very integral to our service, and it seems that GoDaddy's php mail() setup is sketchy. Some people say it works, others no, others say there are limits. GoDaddy's site seems silent on the issue. I also don't like the 'tone' GoDaddy's had recently. They seem very big and impersonal.
Rackspace (Cloud): I've heard a lot about them around here, and it seems they tailor more to startups. I like their flexible pricing, and the fact that you have root access. It also seems like they're pretty polished and easy to use. My main concern here is SSL - I don't know a lot about it, but some hosts I've seen require that you be on a dedicated server for SSL to work. If I buy my own SSL certificate, can I install it onto a Rackspace cloud host? I'm also a little fuzzy on what 'cloud' means, since it seems to mean different things every where - but I can read into that on my own (though if you have comments - they are more than welcome!)
Thanks, and thanks for all the advice I've gleaned from your comments over the past year! <comment><USER2> I've had Godaddy, Server Beach and The Planet. I wasn't that happy with the Godaddy because I found the management interface a real pain to figure out. Same with the reporting tools.

I just bought an SSL cert yesterday from GoDaddy to use on my Server Beach server, and that brought back the memories of how difficult it is to get around inside godaddy's products.

I really like the reporting features from The Planet, and the pricing was good. I just figured I'd try something else, and I've been pretty happy with Server Beach, but find I just run mpstat/ps to get server stats, rather than looking through a management console.

As far as php mail(), my understanding is that it isn't the server that is necessarily the issue, but rather domain, and spam filtering. I'm using <http://swiftmailer.org> for mail from php, and I've been quite happy with it (although I haven't actually launched the service yet, so I'll have to see how it goes).

I can't comment on Rackspace because I haven't tried it yet, though I'm thinking of going Cloud if the project I'm currently working on gets traction.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would recommend Rackspace over GoDaddy anyday. But if you dont want to spend as much at Rackspace, a cheaper option (unless you require significant amount of resources) would be to go with Dreamhost.

For a brief period, I hosted a site with SSL (about $4 additional per month for the SSL) with them and was happy. They did all the set-up or maybe they explained how to do it but it was enough that I forgot. You can also SSH into the server which can be quite helpful and they have options to use a whole instance with full administrative access and their support is remarkable.

PS. I do not work for dreamhost - I just have had my best experience among webhosts with them for almost an year.

</comment><comment><USER4> For SSL, you generally need a dedicated IP address, not a dedicated host. Newer versions of the protocol allow for multiple SSL certs on a single IP, but most places don't do that. If you have only 1 SSL cert, you probably are fine.

Godaddy's servers are highly variable in performance. So you may have periods where your site is unusable.

As a bootstrapped startup, you presumably have SOME money. I wouldn't use Godaddy just because they're cheapest, though -- spend your money on hosting before anything, as your website is your product. And as google reminds us, your website's performance is also part of your product.

</comment><comment><USER5> I was hosting with GoDaddy but now only use them for domain registration. I'd say their managed service is for people who have a simple website to host. If you're looking for something specific from your environment, then any kind of shared hosting wouldn't be appropriate.

I don't have any experience about Rackspace.

Having said that, I now host on webfaction which is still a shared host but they're developer friendly and usually accommodate requests(libraries or apps on server) if it's reasonable enough. As a customer, I recommend them.

</comment><comment><USER6> Rackspace is NOT a good place for bootstrapped startups. They are relatively quite expensive and the services they provide towards their low-end clients are nothing like what their reputation is commonly based on (higher end sites).

If you're not comfortable being a sysadmin and your webapp doesn't require a dedicated host, then go with a shared host that can easily scale your allocated resources. If you really need something more demanding, look elsewhere for managed hosting.

</comment><comment><USER7> GoDaddy is great for domains and SSL certs. I don't deal with them for anything else, and I hate fighting my way through their upselling checkout process.

I can't comment on Rackspace, but Layered Tech is in a similar space and I've dealt with them for years - great, great and more great :)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm unclear: are you looking for suggestions (a) after you have funding and can afford whatever is best for you, (b) before you have funding and are boot- strapping, or (c) during business planning so you can more accurately do financial projections and/or sound impressive to potential investors? The answers that I've seen seem to imply one or the other but I'm not quite sure your initial post told us this critical bit.</comment>


FCC Launches Competition for "Open Internet" Apps - <AUTHOR> http://challenge.gov/FCC/114-fcc-open-internet-apps-challenge

<comment><USER2> Given the wording of the lead paragraph...

 _The FCC challenges...to create apps that empower consumers to monitor and protect Internet Openess_

...I'd suggest a challenge to create apps that empower consumers to monitor and protect...spell check.

But hey, good to hear the FCC, that champion of digital liberty, juggernauting down the bastions of tyranny with a whopping $500 all-expenses-paid trip to DC to meet some midlevel FCC bureaucrat. The Interwebs are saved.</comment>


DOM Comparator: A library to analyse and compare two HTML DOM trees - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.wingify.com/posts/open-sourcing-dom-comparator/

<comment><AUTHOR> Further reading: [http://engineering.wingify.com/dom- comparator/](http://engineering.wingify.com/dom-comparator/)</comment>


Feeling excluded from traditional incubators, entrepreneurs create their own - <AUTHOR> https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/small-business/startups/article-feeling-excluded-from-traditional-incubators-entrepreneurs-create/ <comment><USER2> I do admire people wanting to do startups with a work life balance, Want to solve world issues, but not sleep/eat/live at an incubator.

That is probably the real take away, the gung-ho startup collectives are way more energetic than someone trying to fix process management flow in government.

But using a racists angle in the article, that whites exclude people of color, is rather annoying. I've worked tech for over 30 years, in groups where I was the only white guy, racism and sexism is out there, but not even to the point these people say it is. Political bigotry is the real issue now. Lets leave that stuff at home, and just make businesses where everyone profits. Crazy I know.

<comment><USER3> I'm (somewhat) sorry to pick on you for this, but this is something I've always found annoying/fascinating. I'm a fiction writer and a technical writer, and in both cases, I'm routinely advised that it's good to turn subject matter experts -- SMEs -- not only for things that I know I don't know, but for things that I think I know but might not have a complete understanding of. If we want to know what it's really like to be a fighter pilot, we should talk to fighter pilots, or at the very least read first-hand reports from them. We generally accept that this is true for nearly all fields of interest, not exclusively professions: if you want to learn about concentration camps or life in a cult, for instance, talk to or read first- hand reports from those who have.

Yet, somehow, when it's suggested that the SMEs on what it's like to be a woman software engineer would be women software engineers, or to be a woman founder in tech would be women founders in tech, suddenly "hey, I'm a man who's been in tech for a long time and _I 've_ never seen it" is good enough.

To me, it seems intuitively obvious that they may have insight into the challenges they face that you and I don't, and when we hear multiple women founders in tech talk about the sexism they faced that you and I _by definition would not,_ we should consider the possibility that they know what they're talking about.

Crazy, I know.

<comment><USER4> The article specifically said that she wasn't comfortable because people didn't look like her. The person you are replying to said they were in the same position where they looked around and no one looked like them.

<comment><USER5> It says that she didn't feel welcome and included. It's true that having more Muslim women in the room might have helped her feel that way, but it's also true that if the men had made her feel more welcome, her being different might not have mattered so much. Indeed, even if there were more Muslim women, if the men were still abrasive to them, the two groups would simply have drifted apart ... which seems to be what has happened.

In the GP's case, even though he was the only white male in the room, evidently the others didn't make him feel unwelcome. That's nice, but it doesn't prove that such things never happen. I find the place I work to be very inclusive too, as far as I can tell being a white male, but I don't doubt that some places are worse, and a few are much worse.

<comment><USER4> If people were being abrasive to her then it would have been worth mentioning in the article. Instead she said that she felt like some people were being aggressive if they didn't seem interested in helping her.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Data point: White male here. 4/7 of our portfolio companies have a female founder, 6/7 have a founder of color. We invested in great enteeprneurs in competitive rounds. We have no mandate for diversity, we're just looking to invest in the best entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER7> That's one very nice applicant pool!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> >The incubators and conferences she attended were typically full of men; often white, mainly young. It wasn't often she saw another visible Muslim woman such as herself.

>"I didn't feel welcome and included. I never saw anyone who looked different, "

>I had to deal with a lot of microaggressions, from being ignored to … realizing [some people were] not willing to help."

This is probably the quickest way to turn perceived racism into real racism. Make a huge deal about how different you are from everyone else, and blame every sleight on the white men for simply being over represented in a voluntary gathering.

Ironically, the apparent solution to incidental exclusion is purposeful exclusion. This is growing increasingly ridiculous.

On a related note, how far backwards are we to bend to accommodate for others? I once shook hands with a Muslim woman, before she noted that she was not allowed to shake hands with men. Why stop there? Why not segregate women and have them wear facial coverings to be inclusive of Muslim men[0]? Business has its own culture, without which it would function less efficiently, and the people writing articles like these don't seem to care, prizing diversity over actual function or merit.

[0]I don't mean to target Islam specifically, this is a general problem of cultural clash that only white people in the US are apparently supposed to be shamed for.

<comment><USER9> >"I had to deal with a lot of microaggressions, from being ignored to … realizing [some people were] not willing to help."

As a woman, I've certainly experienced this but I would also posit, don't most men? Tech circles: we're not known to be the most gregarious, un-myopic bunch.

The remainder of the article makes more sense: social outreach and less restrictions on acceptance in programs, being almost like an incubator for businesses not ready to join incubators.

I had to bite the bullet as a founder myself and accept that I don't look or sound the same as others around me at the funding/marketing/sale table: I've learned to use that to my advantage however. Over time, I've found those I do business with respect me for my fairness, consistency, and interest in them as people (which may have come from my socialisation as a woman): asking business associates how they and their family are goes a long way to building long-term relationships.

<comment><USER4> > I would also posit, don't most men

As a man I can confirm that there are people who I'd like to have help me who aren't willing to help me.

<comment> qu4z-2 Yes, that's pretty much life. It'd be great if we could provide all the support anyone could need, but we haven't really found a way to do that yet.

More cynically/controversially, I wonder where she got the impression that it's normal for people to help her with things just because it would be advantageous to her. I think it's possibly the case that people are more willing to help women than men in general life[0], and if that is less so the case in tech, then it could feel like deliberate exclusion. "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.", as the saying goes. On the other hand, it very much could be the case that people are treating her worse than others. There's not one "tech", and while I've had a great experience, I'm mostly familiar with the "small dev shop" scene in a small, laid-back, non-US country so I really shouldn't generalise.

That said, I'm glad people are going and solving the problems they're facing. Good on them, and I wish them luck!

[0]: Whether that's due to attraction, sexist views regarding their competence, gender roles, or something else entirely I wouldn't venture to guess.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kickstarter campaign to break social norms in children's books - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amielockwood/adventures-of-alex

<comment><AUTHOR> Startting to loose faith in humanity when a campaign for a potato salad raises 34k [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/324283889/potato- salad](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/324283889/potato-salad) and a campaign to break down gender stereotypes in children's books raises 2k [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amielockwood/adventures...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amielockwood/adventures- of-alex)</comment>


Guy accidentily deletes Bitcoin wallet with $8000 worth of Bitcoin in it - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1bd1d1/i_think_i_just_lost_90btc_are_they_stolen_help/

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of what my mom asked me after hearing about bitcoin for the first time:

"Well, if the the money is stored on your computer, doesn't that mean that anyone who controls your computer controls the money?" (Paraphrasing, that was the gist of it.)

To which I gave an emphatic _yes_. I also pointed out that if you store your credit card details on your computer, whoever controls your computer controls your credit card. Though at least with that theres some amount of insurance against fraud.

<comment><USER3> I'm not an expert on the matter, but to be fair there are lots of things you can do to secure your wallet. Some of them are even discussed in that thread.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is only one way that is close to being fully secure and that is what the guy who lost his money did. Have your bitcoin wallet on a bootable linux usb stick that you only use for bitcoin transactions.

<comment><USER4> Why not encrypt your wallet and back it up?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because that's not secure, it's just a nightmare waiting to happen.

<comment><USER4> How is it not secure to do that, assuming you have a sufficiently long decryption key? It seems more secure than what than having $8k on a single drive that can easily fail at any time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Because anyone who has root on your device can just monitor your keypresses. It doesn't matter how long your decryption key is. Ofcourse storing it on a single drive isn't a good idea either :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is unlikely to change in our lives within the next 20-40 years? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Porn being the catalyst to widespread adoption of new technologies.</comment>


Two Congressional Staffers Who Helped Write SOPA Become Entertainment Lobbyists - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111209/10151917022/shockingly-unshocking-two-congressional-staffers-who-helped-write-sopapipa-become-entertainment-industry-lobbyists.shtml <comment><USER2> You'll never find a politician worth his/her salt taking cash from a company.

The way its done is to push through favorable laws for a company with a wink and a nod, and then come back and work for the company as a consultant/lobbyist with a minimum 1 million dollar per year salary.

Billy Tauzin did this quite well with PhRMA (lobbying group for pharma companies). He headed up the committee which oversees drug companies and led the push to pass the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill which was quite favorable to drug companies. The bill among other things allows drug companies to set an arbitrary price for the drug without Medicare having the option to negotiate on prices.

As soon as the bill was passed he retired from Congress to lead PhRMA with a $2.5 million USD per year salary. Mission complete.

<comment><USER3> Short of Ron Paul, where do you find politicians, nay, statesmen who don't take cash from companies?

<comment><USER4> Considering it's illegal to take campaign contributions from corporations, I don't think you find many serving politicians who are doing so.

<comment><USER5> Not any more it isn't. Freaking supreme court. 8(

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lauren Pastarnack's Twitter account is @lpastarnack

Feel free to express your opinions to her. Remember that the only reason they do these things is because they don't think anybody is paying attention. Let her know you're paying attention.

</comment><comment><USER7> Regulatory capture is the natural side effect of regulatory control of industries. Look no further than Barney Frank asking the companies he regulated to hire his SO.

<comment><USER8> A balance of power between multiple branches and levels of government, and aka oversight, can mitigate that. Not perfect, but neither is nonregulation.

<comment><USER7> There is no perfect solution, and complain as I do, we still have something good and fixable.

In general I prefer less regulation and smaller government so we can let the market handle resource allocation for us. The less pie for the govt to waste, the better we are.

I believe regulation is definitely needed where there are externalities: pollution, access to education, basic r and d...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This won't end lobbying, but it's a start in the right direction if people call their Congressmen and ask them to vote for it:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/saving- our-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/saving-our- democracy_b_1137783.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> I thought Obama already passed a bill that was supposed to prevent lobbyists->industry shenanigans like this when he first came in to office. I remember it being portrayed as the first bill he signed. Am I misremembering things?

<comment><USER11> It was an Executive Order that only affected the Executive branch. But, there has been some abuses of an exception clause in the executive order. More information can be found at (the previously linked on this thread) [http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/promises/obameter/pr...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/promises/obameter/promise/240/tougher-rules-against-revolving-door-for- lobbyists/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I thought Obama was going to 'change' washington and more specifically end the bs lobbying that continues to punish the people of the United States. Most lobbyists are going to be scum, but in a place where having job is so cherished, you can't blame them for doing their job.

<comment><USER13> How exactly is the President, who is head of the executive branch, going to fix the shenanigans going on in the legislative branch? Remember, the President doesn't make laws, he just enforces them (indirectly, through the Executive branch).

The real problem is that asking legislators to pass laws against their own self interest will never work.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure that no President can solve this problem. Blaming Obama because you don't understand high school level US history is pretty sad and doesn't give me a lot of confidence that the average voter will ever solve this problem, either.

<comment><USER11> The President certainly does have legislative power, some directly appointed and some not. He has the ability to veto bills. His VP--effectively an employee of his branch--has the ability to break ties in the Senate.

He is also the leader of his party. The President can direct the party to focus on a particular issue. Granted, this is more "soft" power than "hard" and there is only so much political capital a President can use. But, Obama in particular was elected with a large majority and is dealing with a Congress that has an approval rating of about 12 percent.

Futhermore, and more indirect, the President can elect Federal judges (not just Supreme Court justices, but Federal court and appellate court judges) that can "legislate from the bench." Effectively creating or destroying law that would prevent or enable, respectively, lawmakers to be a part of the Revolving Door[1] and to take money from lobbyists.

So, yes, most of the blame is on the legislators. But the President does not get a free pass.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)>

<comment><USER14> A few things to keep in mind. First off, the President appoints judges and justices, but in no way does he guide them once they've been appointed. When appointing these positions, the best the President can do (keep in mind they have to be confirmed by 2/3s of the Senate) is to try to pick someone who will not undo years of jurisprudence the President agrees with. Once the position has been appointed, the President no longer has any control, and I believe the evidence says Presidential initiatives have both been supported and torn down at various times by the same judges and justices they've appointed.

Additionally, the President is the leader of his party,but there is a significantly greater power to being the leader of the Republican party than that of the Democratic party. This is because the Democratic party is much more fragmented and pulls from a much wider pool of underlying ideas than does the Republican one, so legislators representing their communities will be much tougher to keep on a coherent party message on a given issue. This is why, despite the strong hand he was dealt, the healthcare package passed by the Congress was lackluster at best: the Republican support was uniformly against it, while the Democratic support was extremely fragmented.

The President gets a free pass insofar as one has to look and see whether he's used the tools at his disposal to try to guide things in the right direction. You don't judge him by the result, but by whether he did what he could to influence it "correctly", no matter what the result ultimately was. In the specific case of lobbying/corruption, mind you, I think (a) the evidence is unclear-to-negative and (b) Obama quickly decided to lose the focus on that in favor of trying to pull out of the recession as best he could and passing some of his legislative priorities. Whether the latter was a good decision or not is definitely up for debate. In a similar vein, the civil rights verbiage from the campaign for the most part went into a tailspin within a year of his taking office.

<comment><USER11> All great points and a finer tooth comb of nuances than my own analysis :)

It all goes to show that the system in Washington is a complex piece of machinery that requires a hacker mentality to succeed. I absolutely and truly believe that the same mentality that makes great programmers also make great political operatives. Regardless of political ideology, I think we, as a community, can get involved to a much larger degree to help influence and shape the world from the other side of the business/government divide.

<comment><USER14> Definitely true. I think, unfortunately, that it seems like the hacker mentality also lends itself more to cynicism, and the end result is that the hacker mentality lends itself more to a bit of fatalism when it comes to the government. That, combined with the (less pronounced, perhaps) tendency of the hacker mentality to dovetail with introversion, makes it harder for the hacker community to get involved in that sense.

That sounds cynical, of course. I do think we can get better :) And I think SOPA for one was a great example of the community going "hang on just a second here…"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Relevant video from article comments:

Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist's playbook <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHiicN0Kg10>

</comment><comment><USER16> Shockingly unshocking perfectly describes my reaction.

</comment><comment><USER17> this makes me sick.

</comment><comment><USER18> And Chris Dodd quietly retire to become President of the MPAA

</comment><comment><USER19> Add their names and faces to the Public Shaming Website!</comment>